The European football association Uefa brings about the psychological miracle that you do not expect anything from it and still be disappointed. He has banned the Munich stadium, where Germany will play against Hungary tonight, from being illuminated in the colors of the rainbow, as the mayor had requested in accordance with the city council’s request. The colorful flag stands for the LGBTIQ + movement (Lesbian Gay Bi Transgender Intersexual Queer and the plus for other gender identities and sexual orientations). Because Hungary has a right-wing, despotic, anti-LGBTIQ + government, which accordingly enacts anti-LGBTIQ + laws.
Of course, Uefa is primarily not a football association, but an anachronistic, anti-democratic imposition. In the social media, after the decision became known, it was said almost literally that Uefa should stew in the drool that drips from the teeth of great dogs, mixed with monkey piss, with spikes, torn a hedgehog, in the rain barrel, the worms were already swimming in it, perished Rats and the green slime of mushrooms that glow like fire at night, in horse oozes and hot glue.
That is of course very unfair, and indeed in relation to the substantially argued Uefa criticism, because it is a blasphemous abusive criticism, where a factual, well-founded criticism would actually be more effective: Uefa is the distorting mirror in which the most corrupt, value-averse version is of a globalized capitalism. And I say that as a staunch supporter of both the social market economy and networked globalization.
The perversion begins with the fact that the Munich city council even had to apply to UEFA for activity in its own city. Behind this is a comprehensive contract for the implementation of a European football championship. In fact, this means that a city surrenders part of its democratic sovereignty to Uefa, one of its sister associations or the world association Fifa for the duration of a football championship. The organizing countries and cities sometimes enact their own laws for such temporary rule. The Uefa related IOC (International Olympic Committee) has brought it to the championship. At the Summer Games in London 2012, the IOC was even given executive functions in some cases. For example in the form of our own branding policy. Among other things, she was allowed to remove or mask logos from non-sponsors across the city – right down to the logos in the toilets of every Olympic venue. The branding police also controlled the ban on non-sponsors from using the term “games”. Or, really, to include the year »2012« in your own communication. The IOC managed to get British lawmakers to punish violations of various branding rules not as an offense – but as a crime.
And because the Uefa has signed contracts with the host city of Munich in this unfortunate tradition of major international sporting events, Munich has to ask the association if it can turn on rainbow lighting. The Uefa forbade it on the outrageous justification that one should not send a political message. The fact that Uefa is practically incessantly pretending to be political is what makes it tough. On the organisation’s homepage, UEFA.com, there are campaigns such as World Refugee Day. A separate section called »Social Responsibility« features photos of people with disabilities and seriously dares to speak of the alleged Uefa values »Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility«, it is completely unbearable.
Under the hashtag #equalgame, which is still Uefa’s motto today, the association’s account tweeted in 2017: »This is Liam’s story about passion, pride and what it’s like to be the first openly gay male footballer to play at Wembley «. #EqualGame #LGBT «, supplemented by a few rainbow flags. In further tweets, Uefa explains: »Football is for EVERYONE«, Followed by the emojis arm muscle, rainbow flag, soccer ball. The association itself communicated politically often and often deliberately, even according to its own standards.
We know this form of bigotry from Donald Trump, who is able to do the exact opposite of what he loudly claims. But this parallel brings a new aspect to the long-running debate about marketing and morality. In times when brands believe they have to position themselves more and more politically between Pride, Fridays for Future and Black Lives Matter, Uefa presents the solution for those who do not want to be constantly measured by the values they have communicated: Branding-Nihilismus, so to completely detach one’s own words from one’s own actions. Branding nihilism is when a tweeted rainbow flag means that you are neither for nor against the LGBTIQ + movement, but simply: nothing at all. That makes life a lot easier for the marketing departments.
What is really interesting, however, is the effect of branding nihilism on audiences and other brands – because here, in the case of Uefa, a great quality of social media comes to light. The well-known Streisand effect arose in the early days of the World Wide Web. Barbra Streisand sued a photographer who posted aerial photos of the entire California coast online – including thousands of other photos of her house. With the lawsuit, Streisand achieved the exact opposite of her intention, her house and the location became world famous. With its branding nihilism, Uefa has provoked a new category of this phenomenon, namely the moral Streisand effect: the bigoted disregard for self-declared values is reversed in connection with the immense defiance of social media.
Seldom has such a rainbow-intensive storm of support for the LGBTIQ + movement been observed in the German public. The appeal to oppose an openly bigoted organization was simply too great. The hashtag #MuenchenMachEsTrotsdem was after the decision the most used in the German-speaking area. Uefa’s Facebook page was flooded by the audience with tens of thousands of rainbow flags as comments. The biggest issue is no longer the game, but respect and tolerance for the LGBTIQ + movement and the people it fights for. In the end, Uefa will have done more for LGBTIQ + with its bigotry than with its #EqualGame marketing gibberish. And it has cost the European Football Association no more than the complete loss of any credibility. A price that we are happy to pay.